X-Raid’s Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret had a 52-minute lead in the 2013 Dakar as the cars crossed the Andes on stage twelve of the fourteen-stage event.
Stage eleven, like stage eight a few days earlier, was scrubbed because heavy rain left sections of the route impassable. The drivers who finished the first third of the stage were allowed to keep their times, and all others were assigned the time of the slowest finisher.
Robby Gordon won the stage in his Hummer. Because of major setbacks on early stages he is nineteenth overall. Peterhansel finished sixth, one place behind his closest competitor in overall standings, Giniel de Villiers in his Toyota Hilux.
Three X-Raid cars were next in the overall standings after stage eleven. Mini runners Leonid Novitskiy and Konstantin Zhiltsov were third, Nani Roma and Michel Périn were fourth, and Orlando Terranova and Paulo Fiúza were fifth in the team’s only X3.
Nightly half-hour updates continue at 2:00 AM eastern time on the NBC Sports Network. Up-to-date results are available on the Dakar web site, and the X-Raid team’s progress can be tracked on its site.—Brian S. Morgan
